Before the election Labor promised to give grants to students who want to start-up a new business.
They’ve broken that promise and will funnel money to universities to run undefined “start-up” courses which will only leave students in real debt. It’s a Labor plan to funnel more money to woke universities instead of helping students.
Transcript
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I now speak on the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill 2023. This bill does three things. Schedule 1 creates an entirely new form of HECS called STARTUP-HELP, or Startup Year help. Schedule 2 increases the funding cap in the Australian Research Council Act. And schedule 3 adds Avondale University as a provider under the Higher Education Support Act.
Schedules 2 and 3 are relatively uncontroversial and should be passed before the next financial year. Deceptively, though, Labor has tied those time-sensitive measures with the controversial program in schedule 1 so that it can be whisked through. Deceit—yet another example of government deceit. Let’s consider schedule 1. Let’s cut through the deceit!
This bill started off with the announcement of an initial consultation paper and a student survey to seek the views of current students and recent graduates on the proposed design. It sounds like a great start, and yet the government has not published the outcomes of the survey and it has not published the submissions to the consultation paper it started. We only know about some submissions—in fact, only those submissions whose submitters published them themselves! Of these, many expressed concern about the lack of detail around four things: the criteria for inclusion of eligible programs; how students would be selected; how the allocation of 2,000 places would be distributed; and what the funding could be spent on. Those are pretty critical things and the government wants to hide them.
Given these concerns, it would make sense to have an initial pilot program. Many submissions appeared to agree with this and it was even suggested in the consultation paper. Yet, no, the government has decided that it won’t do this, instead pushing straight ahead with the full implementation of an expensive and undefined, untested program, and the creation of an entirely new category of debt. The program doesn’t make sense. As even the Australian Technology Network group of universities suggested, if you want to encourage startups, give the money directly to students, not to universities.
That was the government’s election promise—to provide grants for startups. Instead we have this Startup Year program, where money will be going to universities. If someone has a startup idea, under this program the government won’t give that person money to invest in their idea, to develop research, to produce prototypes or to get market research. Instead, the government will give money to universities, and the student will get left with a HECS debt afterwards. Reading about this program, readers might think that the intention isn’t to actually support startup businesses. People might think the intention is to support universities with yet another new cash cow and to funnel extra money towards them through an entirely new type of debt.
Schedule 2 of the bill provides updated funding caps. The minister explained these new funding caps as innocent indexation adjustments. Looking at the table provided in the explanatory memorandum, we have to ask: what the hell is the basis for the indexation rate? It certainly doesn’t seem to be the CPI, the consumer price index. For 2022-23, the increase is two per cent. For 2023-24, the increase is 4.8 per cent. That is 1½ times higher. For 2024-25, the increase is—wait for it—7.5 per cent. For 2025-26, the increase is 2.46 per cent.
If these increases were in line with CPI indexation, we would expect the larger indexation to apply in 2022-23—but no. Instead, the 7.46 per cent indexation won’t come into effect until 2024-25 after two years of additional indexation has already been applied. So you’re compounding the interest. Anyone familiar with how compound interest works will recognise that pushing the larger increase further down the line actually results in a larger increase to the funding. These increases amount to a significant additional 17 per cent or $137 million of taxpayer money going into the Australian Research Council’s budget over the forward estimates. It’s hard to consider these amounts as innocent indexation adjustments given their size and the deceptive way they’ve been applied. There’s that word again; it shrouds this government—deceit.
I note that Senator Henderson intends to move amendments that in effect split the bill and set up a pilot program. Senator Henderson’s amendments would carve out the Startup Year program from the funding and Avondale University matters which must be dealt with before July. They would establish a proper pilot program. This is appropriate. Let’s deal with the time-sensitive matters now and then have a proper debate about this back-of-the-envelope idea from Labor for state sanctioned startups.
To properly encourage startups in this country, we need to fix the broken taxation system and make sure energy is as cheap as humanly possible. The government is crippling startups by making it difficult to start up.
Shovelling money instead towards universities and building a HECS debt will do nothing to encourage business in this country. It’s a transfer of wealth from students to universities.
We won’t let the Albanese government hold us to ransom, bundling up necessary amendments with radical programs. If not amended and if it remains dishonest and deceitful, One Nation will oppose this bill.
Your attention as a member of the University of Queensland senate is drawn to the accompanying copy of my letter to the Prime Minister discussing matters of considerable risk and concern to students and staff for whom you provide governance. You are responsible.
Similar letters were sent to the state Premier and to state and federal health ministers.
As a board member you are a person conducting a business for the purposes of Workplace Health and Safety compliance. Given the complete lack of longitudinal studies, ineffectiveness in stopping transmission and serious documented conflicts of interest and adverse events in relation to the COVID vaccines, your university’s vaccine mandate places UQ and you, as a member of the Senate, in a challenging position.
I wonder if you have been afforded independent or critical advice on the risks of the university’s policy of banning students and staff from campus based on Covid-injection status?
Has the UQ Risk Assessment and Management Plan identified that mandating vaccination is necessary and there are absolutely no alternatives to reducing the spread of COVID? How could it be necessary when COVID vaccines do not stop the transmission of COVID? Why is a Rapid Antigen Testing regime not an acceptable alternative to reduce the spread of COVID, given that a vaccinated person with a positive test result can still transmit COVID, presenting a bigger transmission risk than an unvaccinated person with a negative test result?
These are questions that UQ has not adequately answered and which you must answer to satisfy your duty of care.
A finding of misconduct on some students can mean they will effectively never be able to pursue a career in their chosen field. What justification is there for such a heavy-handed punishment for the supposed behaviour of a student or teacher entering land and buildings which taxpayers have funded for the purpose of providing a tertiary education?
Having seen one of the surveys and the Vice-Chancellor’s letter dated 20 December 2021 to students, I am deeply concerned with the process that led to an apparent 80+% implied “acceptance” of these mandates. The process, pressure and leading questions that the university applied to achieve this are a betrayal of critical thinking and an excursion down the slippery path of propaganda. [1]
It seems that feelings and appeals to ‘safety’ rooted in media and political statements have replaced health data, facts and objectivity. Your students and staff have raised with me their fear that their university is destroying the original aim of university as a place for rigorous thinking, and honest and vigorous debate.
The strongest indicators of COVID mortality rate appear to be old age and pre-existing co-morbidity conditions, not vaccine status. Perusal of Queensland’s reported COVID deaths confirms this. Despite a vaccination rate over 90%, transmission is occurring at the highest rate ever, with Israeli studies suggesting that even four injections are not enough to stop the Omicron variant.
Specifically, there is a distinct lack of COVID deaths among young people of tertiary student age and almost all of the few deaths in that age group are reportedly due to underlying health factors.
I know that several senior members of your university’s medical faculty are aware of significant concerns among the university community, at all levels, about the university’s mandatory vaccination policy.
Please refer to the attachment containing remarks and questions associated with the Vice Chancellor’s letter of 20 December 2021, the Risk Assessment and Management Plan and the Policy 2.60.09 COVID-19 Vaccination.
I ask, what have you done to satisfy yourself that the university’s vaccine mandates are soundly based on independent and objective empirical scientific evidence and that the mandates respect the aim of universities to be places of independent thought and critical analysis?
Our political leaders now tell us every day that we need to simply live with COVID, signalling that we are no longer in an emergency requiring declarations and mandates such as the punitive mandate that the university is enforcing.
On behalf of my constituents among the university’s students and staff, I ask that you please provide your students and staff with the respect and courtesy of a reasoned and proportionate policy that appropriately and accurately reflects quantified age-appropriate risks to students and to staff.
In view of the risk of serious adverse health effects, including death from the COVID injections, personal informed choice must be returned to students in place of your imposed risks. This is particularly important because COVID injections are publicly acknowledged among health professionals to not offer protection from transmission to those around them on campus.
It is a hallmark of our human civilisation’s values, and notably of our health system, that wherever there is risk, there must be choice.
In regard to the COVID injections, the federal Minister for Health, Mr Greg Hunt stated, quote: “The world is engaged in the largest clinical vaccination trial.” [2] The COVID injections have been granted provisional approval based on a literature review of overseas data that pharmaceutical companies provided. Australian health authorities have done no independent testing. Yet on that basis the University under your governance is mandating a medical procedure with no longitudinal studies and forcing students and staff to participate in a trial – against their will. You are forcing them to inject themselves with something for which nobody knows the long-term effects. It is essentially experimental.
Instead of being punished and exiled from your community, students who choose to analyse their individual risk profile and make their own choice should be respected and their individual autonomy and critical thinking encouraged. I implore you to take action to oppose and dismantle the vaccine mandate at UQ and to respect individual autonomy as part of the critical thinking process necessary to every university in Australia.
There are alternatives that enable students and staff alike to be safe and to complete their studies, research and work.
Too often, we are seeing ideas silenced and censored at our universities. University is a place where the exchange of conflicting and opposing ideas should thrive and be encouraged. Thanks to One Nation lobbying, this bill ensures that the definition of academic freedom to do that is put into law.
We only need to look at examples such as Peter Ridd to see why we need to protect academic freedom. He describes his experience of standing for academic freedom against that university as feeling ‘hunted’.
Peter’s so-called crime was to question the quality assurance of research outcomes related to reef science. But it is his duty, as a scientist, to question, to be rigorous and to protect the integrity of science. Every scientist’s first duty is to be a sceptic and to challenge what he or she is being told.
Transcript
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to start my contribution to the debate on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Freedom of Speech) Bill 2020 with the statement that central to scientific endeavour is an environment that gives permission for the work of talented people to challenge the status quo, to develop ideas and to deepen our knowledge and understanding. This work demands a creative and innovative spirit, courage and objectivity, and a deep respect for the scientific method. Universities had, and should once again have, a central role to play in advancing thought and finding better ways of doing things. Therefore, their scientific staff must work in an environment that supports academic freedom. The Dalai Lama said:
In order to exercise creativity, freedom of thought is essential.
One Nation introduced these concepts and requested action from the then education minister, Dan Tehan, and I commend Senator Stoker for commenting that the government supports this initiative. Mr Tehan took these concepts from One Nation, particularly from Senator Hanson. He made sure that the now education minister, his replacement, Minister Tudge, continues to champion true freedom of speech in academia.
Therefore, One Nation wholeheartedly supports the new and expanded definition of academic freedom and hopes that no-one will ever need to endure what Professor Peter Ridd is still going through to fight for these fundamental academic freedoms. Professor Ridd was an employee of James Cook University for nearly 30 years. He describes his experience of standing for academic freedom against that university as feeling ‘hunted’. Peter’s so-called crime was to question the quality assurance of research outcomes related to reef science. But it is his duty, as a scientist, to question, to be rigorous and to protect the integrity of science. Every scientist’s first duty is to be a sceptic and to challenge what he or she is being told.
Quality assurance is a concept that many corporate organisations are familiar with. They do not invest money, time, energy and effort without that quality assurance. Yet it seems that some of our universities have strayed away from the discipline of the scientific method so much that they don’t feel the need to justify research outcomes or to deal with challenges to quality and assurance. Considering that billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money is funnelled into policy development based on so-called research, it is not negotiable that these research outcomes must be above reproach. When we consider that the opportunity costs and the consequent costs for some policy based on so-called science are in the trillions of dollars for our whole nation, it is essential that science is challenged.
I have listened firsthand to many canefarmers and industry bodies from North Queensland and Central Queensland who attended the hearings into water quality in the Great Barrier Reef. These farmers and community members are exasperated, with one saying:
They trusted reef scientists to get the science right, … that trust has been destroyed. Instead cane farmers are being publicly demonised …
They also said that the reef regulations reflect a systematic abuse of science, based on assumptions and not evidence.
Communities are being gutted. Apart from the destruction of so many livelihoods, think of the cost to our society, to Queensland, to communities and to our nation when policies are knowingly based on poor science—which, by definition, is not science. Energy policies, climate policies and renewable energy policies based on so-called science are costing $13 billion in addition to the normal costs of electricity. That’s an average of $1,300 per household across Australia in addition to the cost of electricity. For every so-called green job created, 2.2 jobs in the real economy are destroyed. The Murray-Darling Basin act—the Water Act 2007—is now destroying communities across the Murray-Darling Basin, our No. 1 food bowl, and it’s based on rubbish that contradicts the empirical evidence.
Any scientist worth their professional reputation should have the freedom to stand against poor scientific outcomes and the lack of appropriate peer reviewing. I’ll go beyond that: it is the duty of every scientist to do so. The professional integrity of scientists should compel them to defend spending billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on policies that do not have a robust scientific basis and which are destroying people’s livelihoods.
Professor Peter Ridd has over 100 scientific publications and he has co-invented a worthy list of instrumentation, including an instrument for monitoring the effect of sediment on the reef, which is technology now used around the world; a water current meter, which is marketed by James Cook University worldwide; an optical system for measuring pipeware, which is used in mines Australia wide; and a system for managing agricultural weeds, which is marketed through AutoWeed. This is an impressive list of achievements. After three decades of work, such a scientist ought to be held in high esteem. If a scientist of this academic calibre and such commercial achievements and practical nous can still feel hunted down by a university for challenging the quality of research results in other departments—and hunted to his emotional and financial detriment—how the hell can we ever expect our upcoming brilliant minds, with far fewer runs on the board, to ever have the courage to do the same? We can’t. The simple answer is that these newcomers will not challenge, because they do not have the safety of freedom of speech and can’t risk their careers crashing and burning before they’ve started. Instead, these upcoming brilliant minds will fall into line and continue to expand the increasing pool of homogenous groupthink. And there is the death of creativity and the narrowing of truly great solutions to tomorrow’s problems.
In recent decades we’ve seen our society, our country, being decimated by policy driven science—and that is not science. It’s costing us trillions. We need to return to science driven policy—policy that is driven by science, true science that passes quality assurance tests and questions from sceptics. Professor Ridd has become the modern-day Galileo, for daring to challenge the common myth that farming methods in the Great Barrier Reef catchment areas are damaging the reef. Professor Ridd’s research shows that commonly held myth to be incorrect, to be a lie. James Cook University didn’t like it, maybe because there is no doubt, in their view, that there would be a gaping hole in James Cook University’s funding for Great Barrier Reef research if water quality was indeed just fine, as Professor Peter Ridd’s work and the work of others confirms and suggests.
I acknowledge that universities are required to enshrine in their policy statement clear messages around freedom of speech and academic freedom. While we cannot intrude upon the enterprise agreements between universities and their employees, the amendment I will put forward today in the committee stage requests that higher education providers must take reasonable steps to ensure that enterprise agreements include provisions to uphold the freedom of speech and academic freedom. This commitment to academic freedom needs, wherever possible, to move beyond a policy statement that sits on the shelf and to enter the enterprise agreements, since that is where the cultural change will be brought about.
We cannot afford to be timid and ordinary when it comes to scientific endeavours. One Nation supports this bill, because we must give our scientific staff the academic freedoms they need to be at their creative best. Universities, businesses and governments all need to be prepared to update their outdated views when our brilliant minds in academia show us a better way. I’ll finish with the words of the late Steve Jobs, talking about his company Apple, one of the leaders in the world in new technology:
It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/25TTss0JE2I/hqdefault.jpg360480Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2021-03-16 14:38:202021-03-16 14:40:30Protecting scientists like Peter Ridd: Academic Freedom is essential to University
Thank you, Madam Deputy President. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I support the government’s changes to university funding. Firstly, though we agree with the government’s general thrust. Secondly, we want to go further to ensure responsibility among students and to reduce taxpayer load. Thirdly, we want to restore accountability and academic freedom in universities to make our universities better so that our future students will emerge better.
So let’s get to the government’s thrust. It reduces fees for courses that meet needs for future jobs and more practical courses like engineering, nursing, and teaching. We support that. It will make these courses more affordable. It raises fees through humanities courses, and I’ll explain later why that is so effective, because humanities people, well, graduates, are not getting jobs right now.
The government’s thrust focuses taxpayer funds on needed skills, and that is good for our country. So the second point I wanted to discuss was that we need to go further to ensure responsibility among students and to reduce taxpayer load. The current HECS debt is $65 billion and growing rapidly. That’s the outstanding HECS debt. With Australia’s national debt now pushing one trillion dollars, the repaid HECS money could be used productively.
We believe that we need to reinstate the 10% discount for fees paid up front. Now, people who pay their fees up front, people who, sorry, people who can afford university do not need the concessional interest rate. And as things start, do not need to repay debt, do not start repaying debt until earning an annual income of $46,620.
Financially, it is better value for the government and for taxpayers, and we do represent taxpayers, to have a loan paid up front at a discount than paid out over 10-plus years. It takes on average about 10 years for a student to repay a HECS debt. And we need to reduce the threshold for repaying HECS debt based on data and fairness to students and fairness to taxpayers. Remember them?
The people who are paying our salaries? The people who run this country? We need to limit and student entitlement to seven years full time equivalent and stop people on fee free university education with little or no chance of a job. Students cannot continue to live off the taxpayer forever.
We’ve got to get job ready graduates. We have a duty to protect taxpayers and to protect our nation, our community, as well as to protect students. The third area, restoring accountability and academic freedom in universities. Universities monitor student academic progress and students who repeatedly fail, for example, if they do not pass more than half of their subjects, should stop getting FEE-HELP.
This removes a fee free career for university students who keep failing. We also need students to be aware of what they’re getting from taxpayers’ money, and we need job ready graduates. I can give you some examples of universities suppressing free speech. Dr. Peter Ridd was sacked from his position at James Cook University for being critical of poor quality reef science.
He was fulfilling his duties as a scientist to challenge his colleagues and he was sacked. And the recent Senate inquiry, Vit in Queensland, vindicated him when academics admitted facts and data that revealed the Queensland state Labour government does not have the facts to support its recent reef regulations.
Peter Ridd was correct. Professor Bob Carter, the late professor Bob Carter, well known globally as a fine scientist, paleoclimatologist. He was prevented and hindered from speaking by James Cook University. And now just here recently at the ANU, Dr. Howard Brady, a noted geologist and who understands climate extremely well was invited by the staff at the University of Queensland at University ANU to make a presentation on the impacts of the study of climate science and why it’s gone wrong.
ANU prohibited him after the notice was sent out, ANU prohibited him from delivering that seminar. But here’s a welcome sign from ANU, professors and staff at ANU were so disgusted with the ANU’s response that they joined together and Dr. Brady will now be conducting his seminar later this month. And they’ve given him immense publicity internationally.
He’s received support from the University of Sydney’s staff, from the ANU stuff, from other universities within Australia and from overseas universities including Princeton.
The former high court Chief Justice, Robert French, recommended in his government commissioned review of free speech at Australian universities that academic freedoms would be protected so data and research can be put forward. That’s a scientist’s responsibility.
Justice French recommended that as part of academic freedom, academics should be allowed to, quote, to make lawful public comment on any issue in their personal capacities. Universities allow, indeed encourage, far left Marxists, anarchists, socialists, and communists to speak freely on university campuses.
Yet do nothing to stop these same fascists shutting down lecturers with whom these fascists disagree. In not protecting free speech of all voices, universities are complicit in the suppression of speech. Now, I went to the University of Queensland, where I got a master’s in business administration.
And I’m very proud to say that the Dean of that university just recently a few years ago welcomed students with a note saying, there are no free spaces, no free, no safe spaces at the University of Chicago. Basically he was saying, suck it up, discuss and debate freely. That’s what universities were about.
That’s what they need to get back to being about. And recently I was listening with a university vice chancellor, a regional university vice chancellor, who subtly admitted to me that the Capitol City unis have fouled their nests because of their craving for political correctness and their fear of upsetting people.
The media reported Professor Ridd as saying he supported, quote, any moves to improve the disastrous situation at the moment where academic freedom of speech effectively does not exist. At present, universities are applying their vague codes of conduct on top of academic freedom of speech.
And this means academics have to be respectful and collegiate. Any robust debate, as he points out, is likely to seem disrespectful to somebody. So that is a way of shutting down debate. That’s how universities that fear academic freedom or are too gutless to ensure freedom suppress academic freedom and free speech.
And we need practical graduates. And my three years underground as a coalface miner after graduate was priceless for me. So I left university and then I realised I’d better go and learn something. So I worked underground as at the coalface for three to four years. We also only need to remember that In addition to practical experience, universities are not for everyone and should not be for everyone.
We need to rekindle trades, rekindle the TAFE, rekindle apprenticeships, and Sen. Hanson has been leading the way in Australia in rekindling apprenticeships and the government has taken her policy two years ago and implemented it. We need to also stop political correctness at TAFE and get it back on track.
So we’re very pleased then to see that the government is undertaking a major shakeup of university fees in a bid to steer students towards fields where there are skill shortages and jobs for the future. And it’s better for students after graduation. University graduates have been slamming universities for meaningless degrees that have left students with dismal career prospects and crippling debt.
While a university degree leads some students to a bright future, for others, it currently leaves them with nothing but debt and disappointment. Now, I wanna take a break here because I wanna answer some comments from Sen. Murray Watt. His comments disrespect the university students and universities.
And his fabrications require me to respond. He said that since they have entered parliament centre the Hanson and one and Sen. Roberts line up with the LNP to pass legislation. Well, let’s see who lines up with the LNP. Let’s indeed have a good look at this. On climate policies, Liberal and Labour are similar.
They believe the nonsense. On energy policies, Liberal and Labour both believe in our renewable energy target. Both believe in stealing farmers’ property rights, as they have both done. Liberal and Labor both believe in gold plating the networks. Liberal and Labor both believe in a national electricity market that has turned into a national electricity racket.
One Nation opposes all of those. On water, the Turnbull-Howard 2007 Water Act is supported by Labour. Now some Liberals are waking up and some Nats are waking up. One Nation opposes the 2007 water act. And the destruction it’s caused across the Murray-Darling basin.
Electricity price, as I’ve just said, Labour and Liberal support the renewable energy target, they support subsidies to the intermittent unreliable energy sources of wind and solar, they support privatisation, They support the national electricity market which has been, which is a national electricity racket.
Both are anti-coal in their actions. The only difference between the Liberal and Labour is that liberals are positive in their talk, but not their actions. Labour and Liberal have been killing our fishing industry. Foreign ownership, Liberal and Labour have sold out Port of Darwin and other companies and water rights in our country.
Record debt, state and federal, Labour and Liberal join. Infrastructure, a lack of infrastructure and neglect. Taxes, foreign multinationals, tax-free, Labour and Liberal have enabled that over the last six decades. I could go on, but you can get the point that Liberal and Labour are actually closer than One Nation and Labour One Nation and the LNP.
The second point Sen. Watt talked about was One Nation candidates out there, masquerading, these are his words, as the people who are standing up for battlers in our community. Well let’s go through some of our candidates. Michael Blaxland at Gimpy. Sharon Lohse at Maryborough.
Sharon Bell, now here’s a good example, Sharon Bell, a real fighter, she’s out working class girl who’s come up and is now working in the construction industry. She is fighting the member for Bundamba who was parachuted in from a job from a union position in Melbourne, parachuted into Queensland outside the Bundamba electorate.
And then two months before the recent election, served by election, he moved into Bundamba, and he’s doing nothing. And what did the Labour Party do? They got rid of Joanne Miller, a first class true Labour member of parliament, and replaced her with this blow-in parachuted in from Melbourne.
Then I could talk about Deb Lawson, Christine Keys, who wants to restore solid education, Wade Rothery, a coal miner in Keppel, Torin O’Brien, Steve Andrew, an electrician who has got such a good rapport with the people of Mirani in his electorate, because he is a member of parliament.
These are the types of people that One Nation is very, very proud to say stand with us. And they are fed up with the tired old parties, both Liberal and Labour. And so as an increasing number of voters. And that’s why these candidates are standing up, because they’re sick and tired of Liberal Nationals and sick and tired of Labour.
They have been abandoned by both the tired old parties. Labour and the LNP actually make battlers. Sen. White talked about us as standing up for the battlers, that’s correct. And the reason we have to do that is because the Labour Party is creating battlers. It’s taking the middle class and making them poor.
It’s taking the poor and making life tougher for the poor. Look at your energy policies, look at your agriculture policies. They are coming to One Nation because people need someone in this parliament who stands up for them and someone in state parliament who stands up for them.
And Sen. Hanson, and this is something Murray Watt, Sen. Watt has said, ‘Sen. Hanson and her party come down to Canberra. they vote with the Liberal and National parties.’ It’s not us that have the policies that are the same. It’s not us, it’s you guys. Let’s then have a look at, let’s then have a look at what Sen. Watt said.
We’ve seen it, he raised pensions. Sen. Hanson and I have advocated for an increase in pensions. We’re advocated and advocating and got solid policies for decreasing cost of living. That’s more important because to a pensioner, the cost of energy is a highly regressive tax and burden.
Then Sen. Watt raised apprenticeships. Sen. Hanson introduced the apprenticeship scheme into this parliament and the government has taken it.
[Deputy President]
Sen. Roberts?
[Malcolm Roberts]
Yes?
[Deputy President]
I have been listening carefully and you certainly started off talking about the higher ed bill. And I think I’ve given you enough time to respond to other senators in this place. But I do remind you the bill before us is the higher education bill.
[Malcolm Roberts]
Thank you, Madam Deputy President, I’m simply responding clearly to everything that Sen. Watt has said-
[Deputy President]
Sen. Roberts?
[Malcolm Roberts]
Because his comments misrepresented the facts.
[Deputy President]
Sen. Roberts, the bill before us is the higher education bill. That’s the bill you need to be responding to. There are other opportunities to respond to other senators. Thank you.
[Malcolm Roberts]
Certainly, well, in response, Madam Deputy President, I wanna comment that this bill, with One Nation’s amendments that the government has agreed to, protects students, protects taxpayers, protects universities, protects Australians, and protects Australia. Because education is vital to the future of our country.
Education is vital as a source of foreign income. And while Labour is off with the rainbow coloured unicorns on this and many other topics, we are very, very proud to speak for the battlers and to support the battlers.
[Deputy President]
Order, order.
[Malcolm Roberts]
Students must be equipped educationally for a career in and beyond the COVID-19 economy with its focus on digital technologies, robotics, automation, science, and health services, real jobs.
Senator Roberts has called on the Government to suspend funding to the University of Queensland if it continues to be an agent for the Chinese Communist Party.
Senator Roberts stated, “The recent expulsion of a fourth-year philosophy student, based on his outspoken views against China, has exposed the influence of a communist dictatorship on an Australian university.”
“This is another example of the recent worrying trend at Australian universities that is curtailing free speech and promoting left-wing ideology,” Senator Roberts said.
The University of Queensland is estimated to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and hired top tier legal and consulting firms in pursuit against the outspoken student. The vast majority of the 186-page dossier of allegations by the University against the student has been labelled absurdly trivial and borderline hysterical.
“This is a classical David versus Goliath scenario and the University of Queensland, hiding behind the purse strings of the Chinese Communist Party, has smashed our Australian value of free speech.”
The University of Queensland received $989 million in government funding in 2018 and today receives between 20-30% of its income from Chinese students.
Senator Roberts added, “UQ needs to remember where the bulk of their funding comes from and they need to assure the Australian taxpayer that they are an Australian university, and not an overseas agent of the Communist Party.”
“This is Australia; we are a free and democratic nation, and we will not be bullied in our own country nor in our universities by the Chinese Communist Party.”
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/China.png?fit=2300%2C1294&ssl=112942300Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2020-06-01 13:11:432020-06-01 13:21:25Senator Roberts calls to suspend University of Queensland funding
Australian universities have their hands out for COVID19 stimulus monies.
When you pay your Vice Chancellors over $1 million and spend taxpayers money on non-core building activity, I say NO.
Transcript
Mr. President, I move the motion as amended.
Senator Ruston.
[Ruston] I seek leave to make a short statement.
[President] Leave is granted for one minute.
[Ruston] The Morrison Government Community Group to support those in need, including international students, universities, together with states and territories of established hardship funds, and other supports. Australia’s universities are autonomous institutions governed by university councils. Reporting of liquidity across the sector as of the 31st of December 2018 showed total cash and investments of $20.3 billion. Universities are eligible for job keeping if they meet the relevant criteria.
Senator Roberts.
[Roberts] I seek leave to make a short statement.
[President] Leave is granted for one minute.
[Roberts] Thank you. One Nation opposes this motion. We are concerned that everyday Australians who are doing it tough right now may have to bail out the universities that have become dependent on foreign students. These universities expose us to significant financial risk when they’ve spent vast amounts of our money on overseas students to create more revenue for them.
So where was their detailed business case in their risk analysis? If government did a utilisation study on these campuses before approving more building, they would find that their existing buildings are underused. And universities should not be in the accommodation business.
James Cook University has just tendered to develop student accommodation at a time when I found 216 vacant rental properties in Town’s Hall today. James Cooke University should give us our money back. We value their research and teaching, but they must act professionally.
If the universities were serious, then they would lead by example and cut the million dollar plus vice chancellor’s salaries. Why won’t they? Because they lack accountability.
